Flute Prejudice
This use of the flute in love-making—probably owing to its soft and rather effeminate tone—is very widespread and of very ancient origin. It is found in Formosa and in Peru, where there is a regular "love-language" for the flute, by which girls can be drawn quite a distance to fall into the arms of the player. Garcilasso mentions how a Spaniard wished to carry off an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, whereupon she exclaimed: "Let me go, for that pipe which you hear in yonder tower calls me with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons, for Love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife and he my husband." Among the Shans it is customary for the lover to play short tunes in a minor key, with very melancholy cadences, outside the house of his lady-love before he enters; and if a young girl dies unmarried and has no lover, the young men of the village play tunes to her on their gourd flutes in turn as she lies dead.
Amongst the ancient Greeks the flute was considered rather a "naughty" instrument, probably owing to the character and dress—or rather want ofAncientPrejudice
against the
Flute dress—of many of the ladies who played it, and also to its frequent introduction in scenes of debauch. Horace (Sat. I., ii. 1) calls bands of female flautists "Ambubajarum collegia," a term of contempt, and "flute-player" was often used as equivalent to "courtezan." The Theodosian Code forbade women to adopt the profession of flute-players. Apuleius calls it "the wantonly-sounding flute." Aristotle says the flute was not a
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